DO |
blogspot
I personally believe that the iPod is a frankly corrosive device because it encourages you to surround yourself with your favourites. The whole idea of a playlist is to surround yourself with your favourite things, and the interesting thing is that when you do that, they cease to be your favourites. Would you rather eat only your favourite food or never eat it again? Who is your favourite child mum? What can we DO today that's my favourite? Ask three guys girls... finding favour. fa·vour·ite (fvr-t, fvrt) n. 1. a. One that enjoys special favour or regard. b. One that is trusted, indulged, or preferred above all others, especially by a superior: a favourite of the monarch. 2. A contestant or competitor regarded as most likely to win. adj. Liked or preferred above all others; regarded with special favour. Now that we have added to lists of them, pinterest folders of them, favourite friends and favourite flavours are our lives more fulfilled or empty by the pursuit of what is preferred? Are our favs the things we already have or the things we think will bring us happiness if we ever manage to achieve them? Once we have them added them do we still favour them? Or are we fickle, wanting more, the newest, the latest, in the pursuit of our elite status? When we have to much of our favourite things do we feel blessed and indulged or overloaded? Constant comparisons drive competition. Is that our favourite leader, our favourite product or our favourite memory and who cares? If I indulge one over another who is the loser? Can I not enjoy the pleasure in all things simple or otherwise? In all people in all experiences and most particularly in the here and now. My favourite things in life don't cost any money, It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time - Steve Jobs. OMG - My BFO - our favourite things define how we spend our lives, what we surround ourselves with, what we long for adore and trust. I decided it was time for a self check. What would I like to save to favs today. My life play list. The things I would most like to prefer above all others, those most likely to win. 1. Synchronicity is my favourite thing. Those signs that we really are in the right place at the right time. The stars have aligned we are getting the message and what the point is. The AHA moment, the big tick, when you leave your laptop behind and have to drive three hours to collect it only to find a weather bomb would have you wiped you out had you continued forward on our journey without it. You read an article or a blog, run into a person or hear a song that matter just to you at the perfect time because you get the point at last. 2. LOVE - love of life, breathing love, feeling love - receiving and giving love. Because it's the one fav I really hope I'll never get sick of, could eat every day and enjoy always. 3. Faith - that there is a higher power, that everything happens to us for a reason. That we can trust that things are happening perfectly according to plan. Faith in my partner, my children, my god, my country, my government. This morning Miss 6 asked why the Prime Minister doesn't just sort out the wars? There are wars everywhere mummy? Will we have a war here mum? I hope not I replied, I've got a fair degree of faith that we are going to be ok. Even though the new leader of our opposition throws out his rhetoric daring to use the word war in a country where we all hope we have enough faith in our leaders to not have to experience one of any kind here on our soil ever. Then she reminded me - but we already have mum - there have been the maori wars. At six she has no faith in our leaders - wise child? Perhaps if faith is added to our favourites it will become the ideal that is trusted, indulged and preferred above all others. 4. Hope - Hope for the future, the triumph of anticipation often over reality. 5. Charity - Pay it forward, give it back. Contribute to a cause. The best way to lift your mood and those of others. Selfless. Volunteer for something. Work for free. Help someone less fortunate than yourself not just with your cheque book at a charity gala but by getting your hands dirty, do the leg work, hold someone when they cry, make the phone call, pop in spend a moment in their shoes. 6. Vintage - being part of something's story. I look at my favourite purchases, the material things that I love the most and will horde forever. A 1950's green wooden kitchen stool, it was my nana's , my dad carved an R in it and it has a deep gouge where he sawed a piece of wood. A $5 ginormous bound children's Websters Universal pictorial dictionary circa 1968 found at the recycling centre - word of the day gems steer me clear of all gewgaws. The surprise treasure within pressed flowers between the pages captured moments of someone's summer that fills my imagination with the story of what for them may have been. A ten euro gold thread dress from a Finnish thrift shop my best ever overseas designer purchase - I know I will never see another ever, it weaves and plays with light just so catching the eye as other pass me by and reminds me every time I wear it of the beauty of Helsinki and fossicking through her back streets it makes me feel like a Nordic goddess. 7. Whanau - all of them the blood and the water, that flow through our lifetimes, soul mates, twin flames, randoms in a bar somewhere. Those that touch you heart and stay in your mind for ever and a day. Those we have laughed with , cried with live and died with. Back slap when you meet again kindred spirits. Family. 8. Integrity - Linking what we think say and DO. Life's magnifier. Shows up the gaps who can you trust, who can you work with. It may not always be the nicest approach but it is the most real. When we are out of integrity we feel it. Life's compass spinning out of control, your out of alignment you know it - it shows. 9. Creativity - Art, creation, contribution, legacy. What can you create towards a better future? My clever Dads inventions and patents. My hospitality guru mums talents with food and friends. My children's drawings, skills with animals. My husband's painting 'the arrival" with it's formula for wave theory a reminder of the engineering genius inside the artist, time to brainstorm with an individual on what they may be able to create for themselves. The smallest, cost free as precious as any high end value item. An art work worth thousands or the legacy of improving infrastructure outcomes a precious trail delivered around the country, one of my workshops attended by 600. It is when I look at what I have created, my children, my writing, my work, my garden, and each of my life lessons that I feel fulfilled. Favoured, gifted, blessed and special. Hidden talents, being able to call a deer, play the trumpet to make music or magic - what do you have to share? 10. Generosity - Kindness, Pay it forward, Forgiveness and Sharing. To see a friend offer their home free of charge to a holidaying family without quite knowing why only to find that family have lost their mum to cancer warms a whole village with the story. To pay for someone's parking even inadvertently like when the text to park didn't quite work for me the other day and then happily informed three times over the next three hours that my payment/s had been accepted made me warm to think of the stranger arriving at the machine to find the ticket printed waiting for them. When we offer a ride, a hand up or our time. When we extend a leave pass, a way out or an olive branch. What we put out comes back threefold. I hope that in putting out these thoughts about my favourite things it goes just a little way towards somebody somewhere realising that when they remember there favourite things they really don't feel so bad.
0 Comments
I have had prayers answered - most strangely so sometimes - but I think our heavenly Father's loving-kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me. - Lewis Carroll Fathers day today - did you ring yours? Is he still alive? Did you catch up over a fish or beer or brunch at a trendy café. Do you wonder who he is or where he went or why he had to go away? Milestone dates like these - fathers day, mothers day... where we are bombarded by Hallmark moments and Bunnings ads that are so mass generated as to be cringe worthy.Do they have any idea of the potential customer base they may be alienating. I long to hear of the teacher who acknowledges that the fathers day card activity may need some tweaking to meet her class demographic of 2013. The nuclear family is hardly the norm. What of those who sit today or on mothers day or any other culturally inept example of celebration missing their dads without the soch-med-cred of fitting the event to a tee? There are dads who may never be known. Or those who have been taken too soon or confusingly by cancer, alcoholism or prison. The suicide's, the workaholics, the ones that are unnamed on birth certificates or lost at sea. There are dads whose babies have died before them who must face today without a child. The truth is we all had one. A sperm donor a contributor to DNA pool. Was he tall dark and handsome? An entrepreneur or engineer? In todays mix of blended families we may be lucky enough to have more than one. A step father, a foster dad, a grand father great or otherwise. How we know them, love them and connect with them may define us, bind us or blind us. We do our dads a disservice to lump them all together and expect them to be here today, wearing the socks we've bought them and eating the breakfasts we have prepared. I believe that before we incarnate we choose our parents. For the lessons they will teach us and what we decide we would like to learn this lifetime this time around on this planet. If you incarnate to a couple of teenagers ill prepared for parent hood it's no great surprise when the relationship doesn't show longevity. Perhaps if the early loss or death of your dad builds your character, your fortitude, your compassion and your care you have an opportunity to DO things you would not have chosen to DO otherwise. To connect with other people, to champion a cause. To give love to another dad whom you may not have had space or time for before. If your dad was a hard task master what did you learn? If he was a softie, a push over, a woman on her own wat and how does that make you? Our dads are there to teach us, by their presence or by their absence or even by the fact that we may never know who they were or where they came from. I was reading through an old journal today and I found two fathers day gems. My first babies first word was uttered on fathers day it was Dada. It was a special thing to share with her today her first fathers day without her dad. A life lesson - that has stuck with me was also noted. My dad reminding me that when I didn't get something I didn't want it bad enough. I'd been turned down for physiotherapy school and was very woe is me. Expecting comfort and consolation I still recall the fury at being told it was all up to me. But I got it. Yep I should have studied more, not gone to the pub, chased the boys, thought I was good enough to get in without the work. And every time since when I miss out on anything I know more and more clearly my dad is right. If I really want anything I can create it. And when I miss out it's ok - I can't have really wanted that thing anyway. The picture above is my darling dad. I love you x x And I'm really really glad you are alive today. Today I have been thinking a lot of my own dad and a lot of the dads who are not here and the dads that are. My kids were scrapping tonight and I had to cut my phone call short - it's ok I know he heard what I wanted to say. My dad is lighting a candle for my brother in law - a dad I've thought of today who is on the other side. There are many of them. All my grand dads, the closet person I had to a step dad, my daughters dad, dads of my nieces and nephews, mum and aunties. Maybe your dad or a dad you have loved too. Dads of friends and friends children who through misadventure, mismanagement or mystery are not with their children here on earth today. Dads who lead good lives, full lives and long lives. Dad's with lives cut short too soon. They are all here - larger than life, in our thoughts, our memories and our circumstances. Our heavenly fathers. Those who seeded life as we know it. Today is the day we in New Zealand hold them in our hearts and thoughts and thank them for being the ones we all chose to have as our parents. Happy fathers day everyone - x From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. Dr. Seuss There are countless times in life - sometimes in the same day that we ponder the purpose, plan, place and pace of the journey. That B.F.O moment ...the Aha that's why I had to DO that, hear that, see that, learn that, repeat that experience - the metaphorical click of OOOOOO - thats why! Too long ago with ProgressiveEnterprises "Operation Phoenix" rebranding Three Guys supermarkets to Countdown's I wondered aloud often - Why the universe had decided that me facilitating the same customer service course 3 times a day, 5 days a week for 10 weeks was something I needed to DO? - I get it now. Customer Service workshops became the bread and butter when I started my own business in 1995 and remain so. I have the faith to perfectly pitch every one liner, snoozy audience wake up call on the topic to any individual. It makes the content easily transferable to any industry group who wants a customer service pick me up. I had to find ways to make it sing to myself every time every day so I trust that others will find it of worth. Because I practiced it again and again and again and then some more. I learnt to keep my place when lost staring at another green shirt in the same room with the same poster with the same story time and time again. It taught me contextual memory anchoring, the ability to keep my own state vibrant and the certainty that every participant deserved to experience the best I could be one more time with feeling. No one wants to be the last customer of your weary day. Or to feel that you've been there done that and really can't be faffed to be there again right now. Training hotel induction provides me with a playground for new workshops and new material. I am in an audience comfort zone. I grew up in that world, cut my cloth there so to speak - it gives me the freedom to craft new content; to test out the tricky stuff and see how it is received. I can feel how these audiences like to get their stuff so I can tell when something I'm pitching is falling flat or hitting home. It sends me back to the drawing board or into the streets. When it stands on it's own feet in hospitality I can take new content out wide to the world. New clients, new markets, new projects - as my mum would say - same shit different bucket - T.M.B.A.W! Spending hours on social media platforms, home in the evenings on the farmlet while my engineer works away and my kids claim theTV has opened up opportunities to support others in learning what may work or won't work for them in the same arena. Childhood trips to Asia and beyond - experience for Enculturation workshops and opportunities to work off shore. A random stranger, a scheduled meeting, trending article or a good friend catch up - they all have purpose. It would appear that nothing is by chance at all. What part time jobs, books you have picked up, things you once tuned into - have impacted where you are today? Did the months as a roading engineer give you the understanding of infrastructure and transportation to DO the reports that are now required? Did time on the front line prepare you for stress and hardship and being out in all weather? Time stuck home with a sick child - the opportunity to practise patience, develop a new product or light the internal fire to be well again and in the world - that may have never have happened with the same degree of passion or purpose otherwise? Did you travel to Invercargill in labour to know that you can focus and handle pain, did a loved ones illness send you on a path as a nutritionist? Or did you decide that a holiday away from the pain is what you really needed to be once again declared sane? If observation is the key to innovation what is it that you have had the chance to see? The moments that we think there is no reason for us to be somewhere are the most profound moments of all. Go where you think you know no one and find your future partner, client or a long lost gem. Head scratching moments, delays and deviations can be worshiped as moments of magic when out of control we may be being guided along a path that is not of our own making. We are here for a good time not a long time and it's opportune to remind ourselves of that often. The Celestine Prophecy on recall suggested that the path to enlightenment requires all the bit parts we have played to date. So stop for a moment on the road to fufillment and ask what are you DO -ing here? What might be the value, the point or the learning? The reason why for how or the why not? Is the message practise, research or promise? Are you honing a skill, working out what you don't like, there to meet someone or be someone? Or is there really no reason at all why you are here, there or anywhere? What are you DO-ing here at all? T.M.B.A.W ! If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? 1710 George Berkley _ A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge. Observation and knowledge of reality = Interpretation? How we experience something may be in dynamic relationship to our understanding of it's environment. If a system is unsustainable it disintegrates. Habits, practice and attitudes. Locations, data, processes. Rapid evolution always requires adaptation. T.M.B.A.W - is the latest professional training program I've designed for DO Learning. T.M.B.A.W will encourage people to realise there are always solutions. Working collaboratively and efficiently with others, interpreting our environment in real time here and now is the express way to achieve what it is that we need to achieve. New Zealanders brush and floss our teeth, other cultures practice oil pulling .... - keep it clean people! This Aruveydic wonder treatment involves the swirling of cold pressed oils around the mouth and gums for excellent dental and general heath benefits. And on a continent such as India where the old brush, paste and floss may have been a later arrival on the dental hygiene scene - oil pulling has resulted in gorgeous healthy pearly whites for a long time. How long have you known about it? Tempted to try it? Or maybe Google it to find out a little more? If you long for good gum health, have any skin issues or would just like a whiter smile I bet you might just DO a little more research on it. Travel creates opportunity for us to take a study tour - The observation of group agreed knowledge, a culturally varied reality. How we DO what it is that we do? How do we interpret what happens to us and around us? Which is the right way? "Fascinare" - to cast a spell, long a theme of DO learning workshops - encourages participants to become fascinated in observing what is happening in their environments, to engage with it again. Understanding that everyone is DO-ing the best they can with what they know at the moment. - no right or wrong just useful. - no good or bad just different. Examples of gazillions of other ways to do things are just a pinterest board away from you and millions of other googlers and influencers. Are we over loaded? How are we responding to the access we all now have to the collective consciousness. DO we need this many options of ways to DO things. So many directions to turn that we get stuck and sit still unable to move forward at all. The paradigm shifts of the GFC are rippling through our networks. Everything that goes on tour goes on facebook. To deal with overload we may find inspiration in the observation and understanding of how others achieve success. Perhaps our current perceptions are limiting our actions. Our interpretation clouding our vision. At the perceived peak of the anthropocene, on the edge of the slippy slip into cloud computing, sims, social networking a penchant for being twit faced - alternate realities are easily perceived. Our current systems in local governance, communities and lifestyles face challenges to sustainability. Extreme weather events, changing use of assets, technologies and system failures. Observation drives innovation. Efficient application of resources, collaborative methods of finding solutions. A system that views change as lineal and sequential has disintegrated, people are not sure how to respond in its absence. Affecting all areas of the organisations ability and effectiveness. In local government overload comes from all directions, central government, internal work relationships, engaging with ratepayers, stake holders, elected members. Our local councils are not alone in needing to find solutions for how to achieve more with less. Leaders in big business such as Apple, Google are changing the corporate environment - there are multiple examples that can be applied to civil service. A multi-media, environment immersion learning workshop will provide the wake up call to participants. Spark ambitions, clarify values and limits. Effectively and collaboratively. The T.M.B.A.W DO professional training workshop is a one day course which supports small teams of workmates with similar challenges to find new ways to support the delivery of product and service. T.M.B.A.W applies to any service based industry - hospitality operators, tourisim, retailers and to each of us - It's great life skill stuff.Try a one to one professional development session. This workshop has given me a wake up call - my clients were saying help! please, but we are not sure what with - The challenges were the same across varying requests. I get a monumental buzz on when a new workshop takes form - the synchronicty runs high and the content download from the collective consciousness comes fast and furious. There are hours at the computer, writing , researching and the conversations with clients, friends, randoms and others all seem to pick up on similar content or themes. It lets me know when I'm on the right track - Sir Avery turns up at conference, then you turn on the TV and his presentation is replaying, when the book you were given for christmas turns out to be just that book, and R.A.S activated people have talked to you about it more than three times so far this week. Yes it's on you tube - these are the types of content down loads you start to listen to when you are given infomration not just in one form but many - the ripple effect. As if to validate that this is the content that needs to get to a wider audience. I'm excited as are the clients who have requested the T.M.B.A.W professional training program. Contact me if you would like your workplace to work more efficently and collaboratively. The continual and rapid rate of change is at risk of leaving some workplaces adrfit.Valuable and motivated employees may become disillusioned and leave impacting the ability of the organisation to move forward at a comparative rate. Those who are struggling to adapt to change may face restructure as levels of service and the application of new technologies and extreme weather events fundamentally alter the daily tasks we are required to perform. Some are ill equipped personally to cope with the overload of change asked of them currently. Some admirably are taking up the baton and adapting to the organic, collective and collaboration processes that help to sustain systems, adapt and evolve. T.M.B.A.W is a full day training workshop that focuses on: What has changed how and why in the ways we provide products and services. How is the world responding to real-time now. – A study tour of difference and how it impacts me. How to value, utilise and effectively apply existing skills with a sense of urgency and energy. Working efficiently and collaboratively. How to personally handle change overload, depression, stress and organic change. Interpretation skills - How to observe and respond to our environments in new ways. For learning to take effect it needs to be motivating, to provide a wake-up call – delivered in a format that is in its self; paradigm shifting. Fresh thinking and new processes to address our changing realities in 2013 and beyond. So here and now in real time - when we get stuck we can just yell T.M.B.A.W Click the pic to contact Lisa regarding TMBAW workshops. The pursuit of mediocrity is always successful. Was a mantra to a guru HRM that I was head hunted by years ago. She pushed me to stretch out of my comfort zones and aim to be legendary. What a role model she was and is. OK service just isn't good enough. "I shopped at New World today and nothing bad happened to me." - said no one to anyone ever! Perhaps I'm just having a bad day but I'm really a tad angry and frustrated. I'm f'd off. At the ineptitude and lack of drive I've been experiencing lately. If my anger at others really is a mirror of what's going on for me personally then I guess its a loud call that I need to push myself harder. To scull a shot of life's wake up call each morning and realise none of us have the time not to get this. Reason 1 for the Rickshaw Run. Time to push the limits. D.A.R.E again to live out loud to see how far I can go doing amazing things to support others and to feel the colour it adds to my life. But first - get the work done, the proposal emailed, the invoice out, the GST in, the house sorted and the washing put away pronto. Check out CK Lewis on you tube - "Everything is awesome yet nobody is happy"; to get the drift of what I'm saying. We are experiencing the anthropocene. The time epoch where humanity holds the perceived balance of power on the planet and it's wasted on a generation of us with a huge sense of entitlement demonstrating activity that inspires very little exemplary at all. The generational inequity is daunting - benefits, expectations of social welfare, government and entitlement are everywhere. You don't have to move your feet far off your ottoman or even lean forward on your couch to hear the media bag yet another aspect of how hard life is in today's world. Get real! Count a few of your own first world problems... The charger on my i phone 5 means that now none of my techno wired house features work without adapters is an all too common cry. I remind myself that the women of Macetown managed to wear layers of white petticoats under well pressed dresses laundered by hand at minus 14 degrees c in the river in winter any time I want to B-itch about having to fold my washing warm and soft from the dryer. Those with the means manage to excuse ourselves from the most character building of activities. Because when we are executives we buy into the perks. A lust for luxury and desire to be elite. Convincing ourselves that success is a ticket out of service and selflessness. We deserve to sleep in, eat out, have nannies, fly first class while someone else scrubs the dunny, disciplines or hugs the kids and empties the cat litter. In training sessions when asked to describe customers most groups serve a nation of drama queens, haters, wasters and complainers. Put that together with most of the customers who are getting appalling service every where they go. What a bunch of no hopers we've all turned into. Are we really scrapping the bottom of the wine barrel then whinging at the sediment? When those still unemployed are there because they won't pass the drug tests or don't want to work the public holidays. Most weeks I come up with a couple of start up business ideas. I've encouraged my kids to sell horse poo, wash cars, pick herbs to DO more. Yet an hour a day after school and I've spoiled them. So right now all of you hands up. If you are the person out there giving the crap service and whinging when you get worse service elsewhere this is the time to line up next to me, stand up and be counted. What? it's not you? If it's not you and it's not me then who on earth could it be? Is it because we have all been caught up in the quest to be entrepreneurial , creative types who can multi task and create a great work life balance? Even those who can't read or write because it's not our first language or we have a different learning style to that which the system operates in. How is it that all of us manage to stuff around finishing little and creating mayhem for others to sort out in our wake. While we primp, preen and posture, throw tanturms, cheat or lie, blog, network and lunch? Maybe we justify our mediocrity as we work 14 hour days, go without breakfast or lunch and take care of three kids while volunteering to coach the touch rugby game. Respect for people, places and things seems to have fallen by the wayside. As we meet to discuss the values for private schooling it's unanimous - manners, old school traditions. Opening doors, calling people by their surnames, standing when the boss, teacher or customer enters, making eye contact, smiling, acknowledging each other, respecting your elders are traditions we long for to give a feeling of security and comfort. If kids can't wear a formal uniform at school how the hell will they show up to work on time and dressed for success. If they swear at their mothers, and graffiti their desks and bodies will they feature on police 10 seven instead of the high school year book or the rich list ? I witness senior mangers leaving for an hours drive to a meeting, 10 mins prior to its scheduled start time. Keeping 10 people waiting ...where is the cost benefit ratio in that? Getting passport photos supplied electronically when children's applications must be hard copy takes three trips to the camera shop to sort out. None of it on purpose, but maybe that is our problem. Together in love spirit and purpose is engraved on the inside of my wedding band. Ten years this month - maybe I should now tatoo it across the back of my hand. To remind me that the connection to life is bigger than I've seen and the obligation is to get on with it, now. There is the wwoofer who came to help in the garden, learning on a study abroad scheme at the expense of the UK government and courtesy of Otago university. A sweet kid it was a major to drag herself out to meet the day before 11am, or fill more than a bag of horse poop an hour. The garden she meticulously weeded does demonstrate that she may be well suited for the career in archeology that she is following. Indeed history may be made while she digs. It took four days to clear 50 square metres, correction 10 of them are still undone. As a trainer I know that I have a tendancy to give the level of instruction that I would need to do a job. So I felt a dash of pride when I'd explained grid by grid what I wanted to have happen. Over the week my own speed increased as did my productivity. In an attempt to lead from the front I got a hell of a lot done. She was a great hit playing with the kids and read 7 books in the week that she was here. So I'm sure that contributed something to the collective good. But was it worth it? Consider my lovely neighbours scenario who had random house sitters offer to take care of their place over the summer. Great, though now they are gone and have left ALL their stuff in the garage, no rent, no fee, no care. When asked when it's going to move... their new place isn't very big... And? the point is?? Is it time to embrace a paradigm shift back to excellence? With unitasking and the rise of the intraprenurial. Some B.F.O's for this weeks journey... Focus on one thing at a time do it exceptionally well and finish it. Work in the business not on it. Look for ways to do things better and faster. Use less resources to be more productive. Respect for people places and property. Not wrecking the planet cause it's where we keep all our stuff. Time to lift the game and demonstrate good sportsmanship. If your not first you are last and second is the first loser. Celebrate winners - Drink a cup of metaphysical concrete and harden up. I'll give it a day or two and let you know how I go. If a black cat crosses your path it indicates that the animal is going somewhere - Grocho Marx The path of least resistance are you on it? Know where you are going in life? Or even where you want to be by tonight? Are you faced with choices and decisions that are confusing confounding and hard to distinguish between? I've just had a great discussion with a lovely lady who is at a crossroads of sort. I love it when someone reaches out for connection and allows me to let inspiration flow. It's all the more fulfilling when we are yet to meet in person because I can trust that the information I'm sharing is from source rather than tainted by my human perceptions of them or the way I have judged how they are living their lives. Life offers so much choice everyday at every junction sometimes it's hard to determine which outcome will be the most promising. To trust that tossing a coin could take us on a wonderful journey. Perhaps we have broken through a paradigm and are newly aware that our belief system has changed. We are brave enough to explore new horizons but we are just not certain which opportunity is the most fruitful to pick. In these instances it is important to trust your gut reactions and to learn to distinguish when you are in the flow or not. There is a temptation to race off down the first path we stumble upon. 100 yards into our dash we realise we are up to our necks in shit. The trick is to take it one little step at a time and check in with your gut often. Ask is this an Ooo or an Ahhh. And step by step feel your way along; following the path of least resistance. The path that feels good, light and fun. There are wants, needs, desires, cues, judgements and observations that get us where we deserve to go. Make lists or mind maps to feel out your journey. Start with what you really really want, what you need is as simple as base survival and what you desire is that quiet little voice that you hardly even D.A.R.E to listen to. Desire can wear disguises. It may be the nagging feeling or crowd in the grandstand telling you that you can't do that or should do this. It's time to be really quiet and ask yourself why that voice is so certain that it knows what is good for you. Maybe you really are allowed a pony or actually could be prime minister - we were each created equal with a god given right to divine inspiration. Just some D.A.R.E to follow it. Out of this voice of desire rise the seeds of fruitfulness. The passion to live by the sea, the drive to wipe out bullying, the inspiration for creativity. If everything has happened to you for a reason lifes lessons just may be in the signs. Perhaps its where things are the most in contrast. Observe what it is that you find the most challenging or confronting. Use these nuggets of wisdom to sketch out your road map but allow the universe to fill in the landscapes, the terrain and the colour for you. Reach out and connect with others - this is where the ideas flow and the synchronicity happens. Where 2 degrees of separation can pop out and become cairns by the road side - shrinking your world and putting the people and the tools in your path to take you to shores you have not even dreamt about. The cues are where you come in. The lines that someone utters that you have a gut response to. The offer of a job or a chance to connect with someone or something. Judgements and observations are the road signs. I D.A.R.E'd to comment on an April fools Facebook post by someone asking should she go to live in the South of France for 6 months or Stewart Island for a year. The last joke may have been on the poster. Designed to lure us into thinking she was seriously considering leaving the shaky isles. The judgements from others and her own observations that either choice was suddenly sounding very enticing may have created opportunity to exciting to ignore. The engineer and I asked GOG to define whether Grumpy Old Man Syndrome really exists and why. I love our philosophical explorations of life and its stages through the web of online learning and knowledge. References to Eriksonian psychosocial stages gave me flash backs to those first year psych lectures. That as we age there is a natural need to detach from society as we face death and leaving this world for another unknown. There is the inevitable comparisson of what we desired to achieve and whether or not we ticked the boxes and got there. Or whether we become cynical , bitter, twisted and sad that this time around we blew it and now we are out of time. Didn't D.A.R.E or care enough to at least say that we tried. For those that look back and sum up the path they have travelled positively there is the opportunity to become the wise sage. The kamatua, a healer, a helper, a light worker. To be one who gave something a go and risked the rejection and the humiliation of failure. That listened to what we thought we could never DO and did at least some of it and felt good for it. Or realised that although the temptation to live abroad in a new location sounded enticing and different, that life here ...exactly as it is now; was just to good to ignore and a new level of satisfaction in staying put was the greatest gift of all. I allow my intuition to lead my path - Manuel Puig http://www.breakthrough-hq.com/goal-setting/reticular-activating-system Ever noticed what happens when you want to buy a particular thing or know someone who has one - a car, maybe an Audi, or a designer handbag? You begin to see them everywhere? So much so you wonder if the dealer has a giveaway on that you've missed. Or perhaps you are thinking about going on holiday - Antarctica - then BAM on TV there is a deluge of doco's on the destination. The travel section of the weekend paper is featuring the wonders of the southern realm. Your kids class starts a learning module on it. And you sit next to a geotech engineer just back from working the summer down there on the bus. Why is it that when we focus our attention to something all around us the cues and clues seem to become more abundant? Answer your R.A.S has been activated ... Your reticular activation system is a part of your brain stem which acts like a radar. See the link under the picture above for a great article from Breakthrough-hq on how the R.A.S works and how it can support you in goal setting. Activating your own R.A.S. deliberately is a powerful tool for motivation and for learning. Focus yourself on something that you would like to learn more about and let the universe deliver the goods. Tune your radar in to healthy eating and lifestyle choices and you'll begin to notice all the wonderful supportive ways you can nurture yourself and your wellbeing. You'll participate in a friends healthy living research, you'll find wild berries when you walk. You choose fish over fondue off the menu, a herb tea over a coffee in the morning. Don't like something or someone. Turn your R.A.S off. Start to go other places and notice other things. Hide them in your Facebook newsfeed or unfriend them. Change the channel. The R.A.S. is the portal between the outside world and it's signals. And YOU - the living, breathing, acting power house and what you do with that information. Learn how to effectively and efficiently open and shut that door. With the ADRENALEARN natural learning framework that I use in DO Learning workshops we activate the R.A.S. to the topics and content of the session and build links and bridges to your real world experiences to ensure that the learning will continue once you re-join real time. How can you turn it on? Turn it up or tune it out? D.A.R.E is my model for change. Decide: what it is that you want to be different. Pick just one thing that you would like more off or less of in your life. I generally find it useful to focus on the things I want to increase and to play the zero tolerance for negatives game. Instead of saying I want to eat less crap I would therefore say I want to be motivated to eat more healthy foods that nurture my health. Act: as if you are tuned in to this goal. Seek out images, stimuli and experiences that support your radar and allow yourself to notice the naturally occurring incidences that arise for you as your R.A.S. presents them to you. Perhaps you can search through Facebook pages and like those with healthy lifestyle options, be sure to unlike any your may have already subscribed to that focus on 1000 great uses for chocolate. Subscribe to a gardening magazine. Do your window shopping in health food stores, eat out at vegan restaurants. Listen to pod casts on the topic. The idea is to give your R.A.S a kick start that is as cool calm and collected as an All Black setting up in front of the goal post with the whole of Eden Park silent patiently waiting for him to get it in. Review: Look at things again and again and again. Do it one more time with feeling. When your R.A.S. points out something that supports your goal and matches up take a good look at it. Say to yourself AHA!! - there's one, that's useful. Oh look there goes another one and there it goes again. Enjoy: Bottom line B.F.O of any DO experience is are you having any fun yet? Play with the concept. Go on I D.A.R.E. ya... https://www.facebook.com/pages/sungazing1 I love it when the plan comes together. When we are in the flow - the plan always rolls out in the perfect way. It may not seem so at the time but retrospectively we see the bigger picture. The AHA moment of ...Ohhh - that is why that happened! If everything is said for a reason does it affect the way you hear criticism? There is the perfect amount of time to achieve exactly what I need to achieve. Relationships last as long as they are meant to last. I will handle it. The universe will bring me that or better, ... are BFO mantra's that I remind myself of often. When we acknowledge that we are the creators of our own reality we become aware of just how powerful our skills of manifestation are. What we think about is what we get. So be very careful what you wish for. Today I've finally tuned into my health - I've had a head cold for a week or so (mental confusion and disorder according to Louise Hay ). But I've been ignoring that voice in my solar plexus telling me to SLOW DOWN, BE QUIET AND LOOK AFTER ME. A pressing deadline of facilitation tommorrow afternoon finally made me hydrate with something other than red wine, swallow the vitamins, a super spicy tom yum soup, get more sleep and resort to the steroids. If we don't learn the lesson the universe turns up the volume - or in THIS case... turns it off. In a final push to get me to listen to the screaming inside I have no voice. - Well only the croaky, husky more than sexy remains of one. And for a public speaker that is like trying to hang wallpaper with no arms. Beyond challenging. However I've learnt over time not to worry about these things. Worry is the most common form of meditation practiced by the civilised world. And it has the uncanny habit of drawing to you the exact circumstance that you did not want to attract. We have no need to worry because just maybe the master planner had a different outcome in mind anyway. My task today must be to write not talk. Like the corporate workshop tommorrow. I'm fully prepared, resources packed, well rested, nurturing myself yet still in a bubble of silence. I'm trusting that this DO learning opportunity will be perfect just the way it is... and due to an unforseen event in my clients world we have just deferred the training until next week. I now have a full day off to self nurture and heal. Thank you master planner. I am practising trusting the process, putting the thought out there of what it is that I want to achieve and remaining in the vortex certain that the law of attraction will sort it out for me in the best possible way. As Yoda said there is no try.. there is just DO or not DO. Test it out - next time you head to town ask the parking pixies to please have a parking space ready for you exactly where you need it. Believe it enough and it will happen. My kids love how this one works. Put the thought out there, no doubts, no worries and the plan will flow. We always smile thinking of the person who was dawdling along the street or lingering over their coffee having a sudden urge head back to their car and get out of that park. The only time it fails is when I forget to ask. As a child I used to think about car crashes at junctions of rural roads... don't ask me why. But I'd imagine the birds eye view of these two cars heading towards each other oblivious to the reality they were headed for yet destined to impact. It's a vision I carry in life, and it makes me very cautious at intersections especially country ones. Do you notice when the synchronicity pixies get to work on your day? At times the people and situations you run into are just too spot on to be a coincidence. When your world shrinks and the degrees of seperation become 2 not 7. Those occasions when you discover an old friend or three in an Chiang Mai night market. Or the complete stranger next to you at a random dinner party is your deceased bff's bridesmaid, spoken of often... but never before to. The head shaking moment when you realise that all the fab new friends at this weekends' 50th met you at a party your teen love took you to 30 years ago. It is indeed a small world and we are all somehow in connection with each other. D.A.R.E to believe in magic. Decide, Act, Review, Enjoy - We may not know all the ins and outs of how the energy flows from the dam to the light switch yet it does not stop us flicking on the light. Ask for what it is that you want, leave the universe to sort out the details. I used to worry a lot when a plan was not flowing, when things felt jarring. A date set and tickets booked to go away on a holiday that somehow felt like hard work. A proposal or bid for a client project that wasn't forming. Cash flow crisis or nothing to wear? A relationship or friendship that is faltering. Now I've learnt to let it go. That there is a bigger picture and generally pushing hard may brings me an outcome I regret. Events have a way of working themselves out. The hard to secure client may have required me to linger overseas away from my kids or gone bankrupt and not been able to pay. Where you focus your attention is where you get your results. At a meditation group years ago a wise crone told me that you may be wishing for a bit part in a film, while he director may have been willing to give you the lead. Because you never put the thought out there and were too attached to your outcome guess what you got? D.A.R.E. to dream big. D.A.R.E. to know that the plan will work out for the best. Trust the times your gut is telling you that something is not in integrity. My B.F.O taken from facebook today..A diamond is simply a lump of charcoal that handled stress superbly. God has two answers Yes and Not yet... If the path you are on is the path of least resistance. Stay on it. It's useful to be clear on what it is that you value. If you focus on getting more things that's exactly what you'll get and likely the debt that goes with them. If you focus on wealth over health, success over love, a beautiful face over a beautiful heart the plan will reflect exactly what you have chosen. Time is the most misunderstood dimension we operate in. We give up on goals thinking we are never going to get there. We stop pumping the pump just as the water is about to flow. Making a million by age 30 may not appear to have happened on your birthday. But when you are silent in your rocker reflecting back on life perhaps it was that seed thought the last day of your 29th year that turned into the money tree of your future. Or would have been if you hadn't thrown the baby out with the bath water, tossed your toys, spat the dummy and given up the ghost. If you would like help to clarify what it is that you value send me an email at the www.todo.net.nz contact DO page and I'll forward you a free activity to help you narrow down what it is that you DO want to attract. No obligations - free help for a free will planet. Because the magic of being human is that we have the will to be what ever it is we choose. That's why we are called human beings, not human havings or even human DO-ings. Start to create the plan you want to manifest. How would you like your life to be? Let the rest of the journey fall into place. Because life is the journey not the destination. Trust that there is a plan for you and that on many levels, possibly all - you are the master of it. Tell me what you plan to DO with your one wild and precious life - Mary Oliver , Summer Day I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun. Thomas Edison Take it easy baby , take it as it comes, be a specialist in having fun - Jim Morrison "Are you having any fun yet ?" One line mantras. B.F.O's - Blinding Flash of the Obvious moments. The AHA feeling. An opportunity to sum up the essence of your experience in just a few words. To me that is the phrase ....Best said to another when you are perhaps experiencing something that is no fun at all. Particularily useful when life seems to suck the big kumara. It's a cunning reminder that we are here for a good time not a long time and are fully capable of enjoying the journey. The sort of statement we see on a bumper sticker and want to recall for life. Last millenium I was heading to a meeting with the bank manager, WINZ had cancelled a trial program for transistioning long term unemployed people into work in Queenstown. We had already committed to the office space, training room and team. Our land lord was about to change the locks if the lease wasn't paid. I had no idea how I was going to keep the business let alone my life afloat. When on the way down the mall my financial controller turned to me and said... "Are you having any fun yet?" Instantly the pressure was off, we looked at each other the stress lifted and we began to laugh or was it cry? From memory a lot of both, we had to sit tears streaming to compose ourselves into the concerned adult individuals that we knew the finance representatives would assume that we would be. And the issue was certainly and suddenly back in perspective. I can't even remember how we sorted out the rent that day but we did, the world still turned but most importantly we relaxed, we had some fun and we learnt. Learn from the mistakes of others you don't live long enough to make them all yourself. If you obey all the rules your miss all the fun - Katherine Hepburn Sick to the stomach, a need to pee, sweaty palms, racing heart. A collegue reminded me recently are all symptoms of excitement. I'd been wrestling with my anxiety after the death of three significant others in my inner circle and it was manifesting in similar displays in my middle child. Time to examine what we like to DO when we are excited. Dress for a special occasion, day dream, plan, write a journal. make, give and receive gifts, find like minded souls to share the journey. Immerse in the task, become absorbed in the moment. Some purposeful choices to re-label the state and enjoy the day, moment by second. To nurture my inner children with happy voices, hugs, bike rides, compliments, squeals of glee, baking, adding novelty, parties and fun times with friends. To walk barefoot in the icy cold river collecting stones. To look up and see the light not at the end of the tunnel but right here we we are. In some call centres there are Fun Managers. The person whose role it really is to create the doughnut day and hand out the silly hats. It's not the wank factor the cynics among you would label it as. The best pull it off with aplomb. Celebrating moments, creating themes adding value to the brand and the day. Establishing employee retention and decreasing challenging customer moments. Because every moment deserves to be a great one. As we would like to think that Buddha said... "The trouble is we think we have time." Go on I D.A.R.E. you - Decide, Act, Review and Enjoy - Then do it again.... and again...and again. One more time with feeling! Climb something, set a goal, make a plan, throw yourself off or into anything. Scare your self silly. Fascination comes from fascinare - to cast a spell. Create magic in your day. Go out feel the warmth of sunlight on your skin or eat what it is you love for lunch. Drink out of beautiful glass, tell a joke, love an animal, smile more at yourself in the mirror. Acknowledge your natural beauty - you are the oldest you have ever been and the youngest you will be in this moment. Experience your wealth - you have life. Invite a group of random friends to play tennis and drink Pimms. Ensure enough of them know you well enough to turn up in nightclub attire, and 6 inch heels. Have new racquets and balls on display but touch neither. Drink the Pimms and add champagne. Go out. Pretend you are a tennis club. Talk loudly and passionately about who has the best back hand. Stay out all night. Tell stories on the couch. Laugh hard, long and loud about who wears the biggest nana pants. When your husbands walk in from their fishing trip in the morning throw the lillies out of the vase and pretend you are drinking the water. Are you having any fun yet? "What's in it?" ...Asks our middle child - te mokapuna. "Well... 2 x Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen. " At 8 there is a satisfied skip at my answer. It leaves me mulling questions...How do we make water - really? How do we use it? Abuse it? It's raining today a Chali Rain day; my eldest named a liquid treasure. Her dad a sky diver only ever got a day off when it rained and today it is indeed a Rainy day. February in Central Otago brings very few of them. One - on the 4th of Feb. Those adventure tourism professionals must be relishing the lie in bed this morning. It's the first in six weeks. Huge tracts of New Zealand officially in drought. Rivers dry - fish being moved by hand, stock hungry and the price of beef and milk set to soar. Gods own hydro powered nation may be on the whip lash end of a winter power price hike if the heavens don't open more frequently between now and then. Our changing use of assets puts the challenge of local governance into new paradigms - metering water, restricting water usage and debating ownership. Drive through McKenzie country or the back blocks of Bendigo and count the irrigation pivot pylons while trying to recall how the desert plains of the Lindis lands and Ardgour valley look before we turned them green. GM grass sprouting where there is no irrigation - is it dew feasting? Irrigation changes not only river flow levels but water table levels - flooding now seen in the Waitaki Valley on low rain fall levels due to a high water table in the wet season or bone dry plateaus in the drought. It is our base common denominator. We are water. Regardless of colour or creed. Look around you and see how we respect it? Hoteliers - are you still placing two bottles of plastic treasure beside each guest at turn down each night? A responsible guest will turn down your offer. Piles of bottles form the only landmarks on hikes through a Thai jungle to see the waterfall which today is not flowing. Do you clean your teeth with the tap on, save your grey water for your plants or fly your tipple in from the French Alps? How you act speaks so loudly I can't hear what you are saying. We take it for granted like its a fossil fuel and it may well be. Though there is no sustainable substitute. We need the real McCoy, no additives ideally, those we have already are due to our stuff ups with pollution and poor diet. I am far from guilt free. We have a bore and I use it to grow lawns and food. The hole in the ground so deep it continues to give me flow when the river below is low enough to make me guilty of consumption. I have the occasional major system flaw. Like piling the pony poop really close to the well neck. Thank god the engineer next door pointed that out before todays rain fall or we might have been settling a very different score. By the time it had been raining for four hours yesterday the social media trolls were over it already complaining about the weather. The council customer service teams are a long time over it I'm sure - the phone calls about the metering, the leaks and the monitoring. No understanding of the generational inequity that's resulted in these outcomes. A council that has managed to keep the shit out of the lake and the water flowing from your tap when your population has doubled needs to be congratulated not harranged. Look around the world and become fascinated by the way we honour the water gods or fight the lack of them. Western use of water is gluttony without breaking a commandment. Flushing toilets, swimming pools, power showers. On a Rainy day like today I suggest we sit back and look at our behaviour, while enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof and the wearing of gumboots to school. Thanks be to god above in the highest for crying on our day. Save it and treasure it because a day without it we can survive but even a week without it will kill many. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. |
AuthorWhat to DO .. Archives
May 2015
Categories
All
|